Impact On Jupiter Observed By Amateur Astronomers

Omomyid and other readers send in the news that the bright flash of an impact on Jupiter has been observed — and caught on film — by amateur astronomers. That WMV is from amateur Christopher Go. Here's Anthony Wesley's video (45 MB AVI; the site is already overloaded). In the larger video you can see the impact lasting for a couple of seconds, and a good deal of structure is visible. The amateurs report that no dark debris field developed around the impact site in the time before it rotated out of sight; this may indicate that the impactor burned up high in Jupiter's atmosphere. Soon professional astronomers, and possibly Hubble, will be on the job.

Comments

wtf AGAIN

[Pojut]

Wasn't there a similar impact last year observed around this time as well? /offtopic Coincidentally, I posted about this on my site this morning

Re:wtf AGAIN

[TheMeuge]

Could be worse, he could be observing Uranus.

Re:wtf AGAIN

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

Yes, which was also first observed by same amateur astronmer (Anthony Wesley). Here was his post of the recent impact on CloudyNights

Re:wtf AGAIN

[arth1]

There's no "wtf AGAIN" about this at all. Jupiter is the vacuum cleaner (no pun intended) of the solar system, and any object with a highly elliptic orbit will run a great risk of a Jovian ending.
This is what allows us to not be wiped out by crashing comets and meteorites every few years.

But, it's always good to see a public servant do its job.

Re:wtf AGAIN

[east coast]

Oddly enough, a follow up of Jupiter impact was just reported Thursday.

Re:wtf AGAIN

[JustOK]

Depends on publicity. If TMZ sends paparazzi, then it's a star.

Re:wtf AGAIN

[gstoddart]

This makes me wonder... How long until Jupiter turns into a star itself?

It won't. A gas giant is a star that never happened. There' no do-over whereby a gas giant might become a star subsequently.

The mass difference between Jupiter and even the smallest star is still huge -- like, 50+ times what it currently weighs. I don't believe what you ask is possible.

Re:wtf AGAIN

[mcgrew]

Yes, which was also first observed by same amateur astronmer (Anthony Wesley).

Considering the extreme gravity of Jupiter, if the object that was crushed by Jupiter's gravity was named after its discoverer, would Jupiter be an Anthony Wesley Crusher?

Re:wtf AGAIN

[IndustrialComplex]

It won't. A gas giant is a star that never happened. There' no do-over whereby a gas giant might become a star subsequently.

Not for Jupiter, but it likely happens all the time in the rest of the galaxy.

From what I remember, fusion occurs somewhere from 15-75 Jupiter-Masses (Mj). If you had a gas giant with 95% of that mass it could consume the remainder necessary for its gravity to become strong enough to start a continuous fusion reaction. Fusion likely does occur with smaller objects, but not on stellar scales/timelines and likely with deuterium instead of just Hydrogen (which fuses more near the 75 Mj mark).

Interestingly, a star that is just large enough to begin fusing hydrogen will look smaller than Jupiter due to the increased gravity pulling all the gas in.

The mechanic should occur, since it is the same mechanic we observe for a type of supernova in which a near-supernova capable sized white-dwarf pulls matter from a smaller partner in a binary system.

I wouldn't be surprised if you had near-brown dwarf sized gas giants tripping the limit by pulling in extra matter (even other gas giants)

Re:wtf AGAIN

[Stupid McStupidson]

That joke never gets old - ever.

Fixed

Pictures!

[ArcherB]

From summary:

— and caught on film —

This is the important part. Like the rest of us, astronomers follow the little known meme Pictures or it didn't happen!

Chris Go is a Machine

[burris]

Chris Go is probably the world's premier amateur observer of Jupiter. He also discovered the change of Oval BA to a red color similar to the Great Red Spot.

He lives in Cebu City, Philippines where he has excellent "seeing" most nights. "Seeing" is the term for how steady the atmosphere appears to be and is critical for getting good images of the planets.

YouTube link...

[alyawn]

Umm... if you don't feel like waiting all day for the AVI: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo6LHljBKW8

LOOP!

[Itninja]

This video is less than 2 seconds long! If you want to actually see anything...you will need to loop it. Not sure why the posted video wasn't looped already.

I am not an astronomer, but it looks like

[Phizzle]

a collision of this magnitude would pretty much destroy our happy little blue ball... Yay for Jupiter!

Enough with the "Jupiter Impacts" already...

[Covalent]

SHUT UP, WESLEY!